Boston’s fall art season is in full swing, and contemporary spaces all over the city are eager to follow up on their fall kickoff shows. Opening Friday (Oct. 24) at the Axiom Center for New and Experimental Media, Boston artist Andrew Neumann’s “THE LAST PICTURE SHOW,” his first solo exhibit in town in nearly two years, combines a slew of wall-mounted sculptures with multi-channel video components. As usual, Neumann is seeking to give sculpture a new context, but here single images (including floral references and even a looped clip from Casablanca) are strewn and manipulated across a multitude of screens and displayed on motionless panels, so that the motion of the image is the sculpture’s “kinetic” quality.

Also on Friday, exponentially larger works of a far more opulent nature will be on view at LaMontagne Gallery in Southie. Rich in Turkish and Persian influences, “CRISTINA TORO: THROW AWAY THE LIGHTS AND SAY OF WHAT YOU SEE IN THE DARK” offers intricate acrylic paintings featuring delicate spiders, collections of polka dots, owls, romantic portraiture, and an infinite cast of colorful hominoid creatures. A handful of paintings are installed on multiple panels; several works reveal patterns of highly symmetrical color and line. “The symmetry in these paintings is not about two separate entities,” says Davis in an artist’s statement, “but rather like the patterned wings of a moth or the sky reflected in a body of water — they are parts of a single organism.” Toro often makes use of near-kaleidoscopic repetition, in a way that recalls Eastern textiles and tapestries, but with an appropriate playfulness and absurdity.

Likewise on the subject of the absurd, and taking cues from less ornately crafted items, the new body of work from Taylor Davis — which opens at Samson Projects beginning October 31 — is anything but romantic (and delightfully so). “N W rk Ab t” is her second solo show in the space, this time with a new sculptural vocabulary in tow. In recent years, Davis has seemed rooted in a kind of cold yet surprisingly pleasant anti-formalism, crafting such commonplace materials as plywood and bags of sand into newly defined spaces. Her new work remains dedicated to her investigation of the mundane, but it includes text and select prints.

I wanna rock In 1982, a group of local hardcore punk bands released what would turn out to be a landmark compilation album, This Is Boston, Not L.A.

Bang bang Misaki Kawai's new solo show marks the Boston debut of her two-dimensional works and the first opportunity for New England audiences to see her as a bona fide painter. Opening February 21 at LaMontagne Gallery, " Misaki Kawai : Kung Fu Forest."

The whiff of art The stench came from the rotting corpse — well, it appeared to be a corpse — of a woman who'd been laid out on a metal table like an exhumed murder victim awaiting a coroner's examination.

Discotechnique Break out your hottest moves — a forthcoming exhibition in South Boston asserts that the path to abstraction could go through dancing.

Weather reports One of the great themes in America is nostalgia for the "good old days," which flame into being and then fade into the distance.

As you like it English-born artist Melanie Smith has made Mexico City her home for the past 20 years.

Fringe festival Off the beaten path, the fringes of Boston's gallery scene are seeing new development, and even expansion.

2009: The year in art The year started off with a kick in the teeth when, in January, Brandeis University announced plans to shutter its Rose Art Museum and sell off its masterpieces.

Year in Art: Beyond the gloom The Boston art scene felt muted for much of 2008, with 10 galleries closing and the death of two local icons: Harriet Casdin-Silver and Jules Aarons.

Review: Andrew Witkin, Doug Weathersby Over the summer, José Luis Blondet, curator at the Boston Center for the Arts, invited Boston artist Andrew Witkin to do an unspecified project in a hidden corridor at the BCA's Mills Gallery.

DISCOTECHNIQUE | June 11, 2009 Break out your hottest moves — a forthcoming exhibition in South Boston asserts that the path to abstraction could go through dancing.

MARITIME AFTER TIME | June 03, 2009 There's no question about the Peabody Essex Museum's unwavering love of all things nautical. How many other museums employ a curator of maritime art and history (in this case, Daniel Finamore)?

STAYCATION | May 28, 2009 With some contemporary-art spaces holding off on summer programming, June's First Friday celebration at the Harrison Avenue galleries may be the strongest one until the fall season, when both the traffic and the collectors return.